Last year, the City of Ypres Peace Service invited nursery and primary schools to take part in the ‘Patchwork on Peace’ initiative. Children of 19 schools took part in the initiative. The concept is to have a class at school in which children think about and discuss peace. They were asked a question, “What is peace?,” then visualized and expressed their answer on a large sheet of paper as drawings.

The end result of the project is a very colorful, digitally printed ‘patchwork’, measuring 6.5 by 2 meters. It clearly shows that peace cannot be defined unambiguously. The work makes many associations with peace-related themes, places peace at various levels and draws attention to a number of peace symbols. By working on the patchwork, the children realized that ‘peace’ is more than the absence of war―but the word also describes a very positive state that everyone is all equal, and everyone pays attention to the climate and the earth.

The patchwork has been exhibited as banners at the Ypres library and the entrance hall of the Ypres City Hall, so that the visitors can discover for themselves what children think of ‘peace.’

Mayor Talpe of Ypres commented: “Children approached peace in a colorful and above all positive way. This is a clear message that we, as a city council, together with the children, would like to share with citizens and visitors. We will distribute bookmarks with the patchwork printed on to the visitors of the library and museums in Ypres.”

From May to June 2021 the banner is travelling along the schools that participated in the project.